This year, choir director Kenneth Davis separated Chamber and Concert Choir into two groups, leaving a small 14 person crew of mainly underclassmen to hold their own in the Concert Choir 5th hour class. Against the odds, this group, who was first taught by Davis at Beach in 2023, made it to States along with their older peers, a surprising accomplishment for such a young group.
“We were a lot more focused this trimester. We learned our songs quickly and proficiently, and that really helped us be sufficient to get a good score at the festival,” Eleana Weid (‘29) said.
For their first year competing at the MSMVA State Choral Festival, Concert Choir was able to achieve a score of 2 out of 5. The singers are proud of their performance, but also simply appreciative of the opportunity to compete at this high level along with the more advanced Chamber Choir, who scored one of the only two 1s of the day.
“Just getting to see the other choirs is exciting. You get to see a ton of choirs during Festival but States is a level higher, and you get to even more talent and experience different songs,” Macie McDermott (‘29) said.
The choir had to hire a new director in the 23-24 school year after Aaron Pollard retired to spend more time with his family. Davis moved from Andrews Texas because he wanted to be closer to family and Chelsea was a wonderful unique place to teach. He loves the choir and the connections he’s made with the students.
“Kenneth Davis helped us get to states because even though he goes through his good days, and his bad days, he always pushes us to be our best,” McDermott (‘29) said
From the 23-24 school year the choir has grown significantly with communication and getting to know each other better as singers and just people in general. This has made the choir more welcoming and has helped many choir members make new friendships and connections.
“We’ve grown a lot in our range and as well as our communication with each other, staying good in our songs and just being collaborative,” Weid (‘29) said.
A specific part of the choir is very important to be featured in the music called the descant part. A descant part is a part of music where 1 or 2 people go higher in pitch to make a fourth harmony in the music. Some students in the choir have their worries about how the descant part will sound because of how small the other 3 sections of the choir are.
“When the two descant parts in our songs break off it’s hard to know your part and stick with your part when we have really good singers singing the descant part.” McDermott (‘29) said.
Davis has helped by improving the choirs tone, pitch, expression in music. By doing this it has helped the choir reach state level choral festival.
“I feel like it’s very exciting, because it’s a big opportunity for our choir, and it will make a good memory to last with everyone in our group,” Weid (‘29) said.
